Alex's Journey

Sore Legs or Muscles After Snowboarding or Skiing?

Your typical day snowboarding or skiing may go from 2 hours to as many as 5! How many times a week or even month would you say you get that kind of exercise? Probably zero. Having sore quads, hamstrings, calves or lower back are the usual suspects after a day of intense exercise.

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS)

This is the more technical term for waking up the morning after feeling sore. Generally you will feel this soreness 24 hours after intense exercise. Within about 2 to 3 days the discomfort will subside. Getting DOMS is actually a good thing, your muscles are letting you know they need rest to adapt and rebuild stronger.

How to prevent or reduce DOMS

Stretching can be a great way to relieve the stiffness of DOMS not to mention it works great for prevention. Getting a gym membership and becoming a regular can also prepare your muscles for intense exercise.  If you didn’t stretch or work your body up to this level of intensity, the quickest fixes are a Massage or Hot Bath.

Standing Quadriceps Stretch

Basic Leg Stretches

Standing Quadriceps Stretch

Stand near a wall or stationary object for balance, keeping your back straight lift your right foot towards your glutes, next use your right hand to hold the top of your foot and assist it up until your heel is near or touching your glutes, you should feel a pull on your quad. Hold for 20-30 seconds and repeat with your left leg.

Sitting Hamstrings Stretch

Sit on the floor with both legs out straight, Extend your arms and rech forward by bending at the waist as far as you can while keeping your knees completely straight. Hold for 20 to 30 seconds.

Standing Calf Stretch

Face a wall and stand a foot away from it, extend one leg behind you, keeping both feet flat and your rear knee straight lean toward the wall until you feel the pull in the calf muscle of the rear leg. Hold for 20-30 seconds and repeat with your other leg.

Strength-

Bench Press
Warm up: 45 x 12, 55 x 10, 75 x 8, 95 x 5, 115 x 3
Working sets (70% of 1RM (180lbs) 5 sets 7 reps)
125lbs x 7, x7, x7, x7, x7

Superset1 Dips: 13 reps, 11, 10
Superset2 DB Flies: 15lbs x 12, 15 x 7, 15 x 6

Close Grip Bench Press: 55lbs x 8, 75 x 7, 75 x 6
Flat Bench BB Tri. Ext: 35 x 8, 55 x 6, 45 x 7, 45 x 7 

Strength Endurance-

Bench Press (65% 1RM 10 sets 4 reps 30 sec rest)
115lbs x4, x4, x4, x4, x4, x4, x4, x4, x4, x4

Cardio-

10 minutes skipping

 Weight 151.25 lbs

Calorie Intake: 1700

Comments:

Felt a little fatigued today, I don’t really have any barometer on my strength anymore and no it has not gone down from 185lbs to 125lbs bench press. I’m following a strength program and focusing on better more refined form. I go down a few inches further to touch my chest. At the end of my cutting phase I will see how my strength fared.

Strength-

Deadlifts
Warm up: 45 x 8, 95 x 8 115 x 8, 135 x 5, 155 x 5, 175 x 3
Working sets (70% of 1RM 5 sets 7 reps)
185lbs x 7, x7, x7, x7 ,x7

Pullups: 5 reps, 5 reps, 4 reps

DB Rows: 60lbs x 6, 55 x 8, 55 x 8 

Strength Endurance-

Deadlifts (65% 1RM 10 sets 4 reps 30 sec rest)
175 x 4, x4, x4, x4, x4, x4 ,x4 ,x4, x4, x4

Cardio-

10 minutes rowing
10 minutes skipping

so 1RM  for military press was 110lbs with a full range of motion touching the collar.

Warm up: Bar x 12, 55 x 8, 60 x 5, 65 x 5, 70 x 2

5 sets of 7 reps at %70:
75lbs x7, 75 x 7, 75 x 7, 75 x 7, 75 x 7

Upright Rows
45lbs x 7, 55 x 7, 60 x 7, 65 x 7, 65 x 7

Military press for strength-endurance (10 sets 4 reps 30 sec. rest)
managed to get 8  sets done of 4 reps and the 9th to failure at 3 reps

Rear Delt Machine
90lbs x 7, 95 x 10, 95 x 8

25 minutes of jogging

Squat
Warm up:
Bar x 10, 65lbs x 8, 85 x 8, 115 x 5
Working Sets
135 x 7, 135 x7, 135 x 7, 135 x 7, 135 x 7

Squat
145 x 4(20 seconds rest), 145 x 4(20s rest), 135 x 4

Calf Raise
225 x 7 for 5 sets

Did the same workout as last week to simplify this weeks workout so i dont have to calculate doing different percentages of my 1RM. I’m going to eventually start squatting for strength-endurance so today i tried some low rest sets.

20 minutes on the rowing machine

Remember I took last week off for christmas and indulged a little bit so this progress update will be for 12 days not 7 days not 14 days because I’m updating on saturday instead of the usual day monday.

2 Weeks ago:

Today:

Weighed in at 152 lbs today. I was 156lbs 12 days ago and 155.5 on monday. So on my week off I lost .5 a pound and this week I’ve lost 3.5lbs A little much again and I’m sure this is a contributing reason to a low 1RM on my BP today.

I’ve bought a very detailed book on periodized strength and endurance programs so expect me to be adding things and tweaking things alot in he near future when it comes.

This week I’m going to be doing 5 sets for 7 reps at %70 of my 1 Rep Max of Squat, Deadlifts, and Bench Press although I will be aiming for a weight and that rep/set range on my isolation exercises as well even though I have not calculated a 1 rep max.

I’m going to be cycling calories this week as well to see how it works, I’ll remain at 1800 calories all week becuase I seem to be still losing weight at this level however slowly it is. This is how my calorie intake will look like for the week:

Monday 1800cal
Tuesday 1500cal
Wednesday 2200cal
Thursday 1800 cal
Friday 1700 cal
Saturday 2000 cal
Sunday 1600 cal

 Also I’ll be adding 100mg a day of caffeine 2 or 3 days this week just for a boost at work.